The loud sharp crack of the explosion startled Raven and he dropped the toolbox with a crash that only sounded quiet in comparison. Only afterward did he realize that the whir and puffs of air against his skin had been shrapnel zipping by within inches. He coughed on the fumes and sat on his toolbox to regain his composure. Hand waving away the stench of explosives, he tried to breathe evenly while his head spun and ears rang. When Gail spoke he, raised a questioning eyebrow.

After a few moments he calmed himself and stood to go in and see the damage. Everything sounded muffled and overlaid with a 8kHz tone that was distracting.

"There was a posse that left just before you did." He yelled to Marilou and Vix through the ringing. "They were on horseback. Looking around this place, I can understand why."

Once inside he looked around, surprised and dismayed at the same time. Surprised by the small amount of blast damage, but dismayed by how thoroughly the shrapnel had perforated every surface that wasn't armored or reinforced. He sighed and coughed again, before leaving the shuttle.

"It's going to be a major fix to make it ready to fly any distance." He said loudly"The front port will have to be replaced before I trust it to vacuum. It's a month of work to take it all apart and back together again, assuming we have the funds and parts. Maybe we can tow it back to either the Ferry or to town?"
He shook his head and yawned widely, his ears popped and came somewhat clearer, but the annoying high pitched whine was still there.

Mason shrugs at Marilou's inquiry, "They dint wanna bargain before, but said they'd keep an eye out for the Cap. Mainly jus dint want civvies gettin in their way. They prolly gonna be a might bit annoyed findin us out here makin' noise and drawin' 'tention, but I don' suspect they mean to do us any harm or anythin'."

After Raven does his assessment of the damage to the shuttle, Mason asks the mechanic, "You got a spare snapper or some tape? Kinda hard to swing Tabby about and keep the lantern shinin' in the right direction at the same time."

OOC

Honestly, Mason would have already affixed the glowstick to the top of Tabby back on the ship, had it been clear that we were flying in at night rather than day. But in the spirit of avoiding retcon, just having it done in the field now.

"Well I'm not sticking around, you shouldn't either." She jabs at Marilou "Lets let them pass, follow them and see how it goes down. Or get in first. The longer we stand here talking about it the closer they all get." And she heads off into the darkness & mud, not quite in the direction of Gracetown neither in the direction of the incoming. It's quite possible she doesn't actually know where she's going... But she's going.

Mason is slightly slack-jawed as Vix, with only a few words, heads off alone into the darkened woods, "Kay."

Still waiting on Raven's response, Mason proceeds to enter and look about the interior of the shuttle for spare snaplink or some mesh tape, calling back in hushed tone towards Gail, "Someone should get after her. Even iffin' the raiders weren' bouts, it ain' safe to be runnin' blind through these woods at night. The mines are a good ways away from here, but if she runs into a hole or crevasse an' nobody else is there to see 'xactly where... you ain' never gonna hear from'mer 'gan."

Raven pulled a roll of 2" duct tape from the top of his toolbox, two more sat right next to it. Never can have too much of this stuff. He held it out to Mason. "She's her own person. I feel sorry for any raider that tries to grab her, thinkin it'll be an easy take."

He looks to Gail for suggestions, but offers one of his own. "If this posse has gotten a wave, they might be lookin for us too. Otherwise we got every right to be pokin round our own shuttle. We said as much to them last night." He shrugs. "Kinda toss o the dice from my eye."

"So far as the shuttle goes - it might be able to fly and dock with the Ferry if she is close, but I wouldn't want to go much further than the treetops or thereabouts until she's had major work done." He pats the side of the damaged craft. "I can get to work on her innards and make sure there is nothin catastrophic wrong."

Raven looked at Gail in a bit of disbelief, then realizing she probably couldn't see him, ducked into the shuttle to stash his toolbox. He clapped Mason on the shoulder "Good luck, big guy."You are gonna need it before he headed after Vix.

He found a spot with good concealment from the front and decent cover on the other sides then settled to wait. With a sawed off shotgun, he doesn't want to shoot anywhere near either the shuttles or Mason, so he checked sight lines carefully. That done, he started making a mental list of supplies needed for the repair to take his mind off of physical discomfort. Eyes closed and

Dice Alertness + Perception:

1d12

11

1d6t

6

Running Total = 17

ears open, time passed. Mud slowly oozed into Raven's boots, and wet spread where he was in contact with the ground, but it wouldn't get better for moving so he just laid there, waiting.

While apparently impervious to slings and arrows of all good and common sense, Mason is nonetheless somewhat rattled by his new crewmates offerings of luck, particularly Gail's peck on the cheek. Though his memory admittedly wasn't the best, try as he might, he couldn't readily recall any time where he'd gotten such a sentiment from a pretty lady in the past that hadn't preceded fairly horrible events... or the realization that his wallet had suddenly gone missing. Still, once Mason agreed to do something stupid, he tended to be obliged to follow through.

Nestling into the shuttle entrance area, Mason makes an effort not to point his glow sticks light in the direction of the rest of the crew's hiding place as he waits on the group from the South to arrive.

Fifteen tense minutes pass in uncomfortable silence as the crew lay in wait. They all struggle to see through the inky black, their only source of light being Mason's meagre glow stick mounted at the end of his heavy weapon. Meanwhile, the relentless rhythmic patter of light rain slowly takes its toll eventually soaking everyone's through to the skin. The gruelling inaction starts to become unbearable and Mason almost considers running back to Gail's position to rethink their strategy. Maybe Becca got the direction this mysterious posse was heading wrong. After all, she didn't seem to confident operating the thermal cameras.

However, it seems that their impatience had gotten the better of them. Whilst Vix and Gail stare blindly into the darkness with no avail, Raven squinting as hard as he can manages to notice two faint silhouettes in the distance. They appear to be moving slowly and methodically in the treeline opposite him. Worst of all, he as the sinking feeling that they are watching him right back. To the mechanic's right, the ever vigilant assassin Marilou's keen senses also pick up something afoot. She could have sworn that she saw movement by the large boulder about fifty feet from her, accompanied by a muffled rattle. It was quickly becoming clear to the two more observant members of the crew that they were not alone. Unfortunately, they had no way alerting their comrades without risking drawing attention to themselves by either calling out moving from their respect positions.

To make matters even more dire, both Raven and Marilou also fail to notice the one crouching figure creeping alongside the cover the Captain's shuttle. The sulking silhouette draws ever closer to Mason's position, drawing a pistol from it's from it's holster. However as the figure turns into the shuttle entrance to strike, it quickly drives back out of the way again, retreating from Mason's feild of vision. "Jesus Christ, Mason? Is that you?" whispers a familiar gravelly voice from just outside the doorway.

Mason quickly recognises disembodied voice as the bushy bearded Officer Harold. It's fortunate that it is hard to confuse the giant for anyone else, even with a light being shined in your face, because judging by Harold's dynamic entry either one of them was trigger put away from a fatal case of mistaken identity. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?" grumbles the bewildered officer in a hushed tone as he lowers his weapon and stands once more in the shuttle's doorway. He then raises his fist into the air, probably to signal his men to stand down. "Turn that gorram light off," snaps Harold as he turns back to Mason. "Did I not tell ya not to come out 'ere. But I'm guessing by those two shuttles you've gone and dragged those offworlders with ya instead. Come on. Get 'em out before some shoots the wrong person," sighs the clearly frustrated officer.

Fortunately, Mason was fairly confident the men approaching the crew were the posse he’d met before and thus his finger isn’t terribly twitchy when Harold jumps in and out and then back into view again.

Jerking his weapon to the side, so as to not give the crew’s sniping spider monkey any ideas about opening fire on the lawman, “Well, not so much doin’ the draggin’ as bein’ dragged along, really.”

Not entirely sure how the one-eyed man who didn’t appear to have any sort of night lenses on him was getting’ around in the pitch, Mason is clearly not too receptive to placing himself into the dark, especially given that he was still technically the bait. He is however ready to call the others, when suddenly it dawns on him, “Ya know, they dint actually give me a signal or nothin’. I guess they jus’ intend to come out when it’s clear I was’n gonna be shootin’ at ya.”

Not wanting to risk exposing the crew via his ship-link, Mason shrugs and begins flipping on and off his glowstick several times, inadvertently spelling out 'ASS' in Morse code whilst doing so.

Raven heard Mason talking, but couldn't make out the words. When there had been no immediate shooting, and the talk sounded less than angry, he had taken Mason's flashing of the light as a signal. He stood and walked into the clearing, weapon slung behind his back, not to hide, but to be unthreatening.

"You know this fella?" he asks Mason.

As he got closer, the uniform became clear.

"We don't wanna get in y'all's way, but this here's ours." He gestures at the damaged shuttle,

Marilou lay there, so quiet it was like she entered another plane of existence. Her ears pick up sound coming near the boulder, but she did not try to train her scope to get a better picture. She'd have to wait and see what happens. When the big man lowered his weapon and began flashing his light for a primitive signal, Marilou doesn't move from her spot anyway. For all those cops knew, she was still in jail. She didn't want to complicate things, and so she waited. A cautious assassin is better than a dead one.